Google Launches YouTube Music Service With Creepy AI To Predict Listening Habits (audioholics.com)

Audiofan writes: Will the new YouTube Music streaming service provide the soundtrack to your life? Google believes that its ability to harness the power of artificial intelligence will help the new service catch up to its rivals in the music streaming business. Google's latest attempt to compete with Spotify and Apple Music may finally have what it takes if it doesn't creep users out in the process. While the service officially rolls out on Tuesday, May 22nd, only some users will be able to use it at launch. What separates YouTube's music streaming service from the competition is its catalog of remixes, live versions, and covers of official versions of songs. It also uses the Google Assistant to make music recommendations based on everything it knows (and can learn) about you and your listening habits. "When you arrive at the gym, for example, YouTube Music will offer up a playlist of hard-hitting pump-up jams (if that's your thing)," reports Audioholics. "Late at night, softer tunes will set a more relaxing mood."

YouTube Music is free with ads, but will cost $9.99 for ad-free listening. There is also YouTube Premium, which will cost $11.99 per month, and will include both the ad-free music service and the exclusive video content from the now-defunct YouTube Red.

Comments

When will YouPorn get this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would appreciate porn content and genre tailored to my location and time of day.

Re:When will YouPorn get this?

[www.goatse.ru]

Thank you for your input, Creepy Al.

Re:When will YouPorn get this?

[alex67500]

The mention to YouTube Red made me smile, I thought I'd misread :-D

Not creepy at all

[AvitarX]

Google Play Music already does this, and it's great (time, location, past activity for time and location), the addition of covers and live bringing it to YouTube sounds excellent. The last YouTube music wasn't so good, barely (if at all) better than using plain old YouTube to find things.

It was how they integrated the curated playlists from the company they purchased before launching Play Music. At work, suggests playlists designed for focusing (no lyrics) or with radio edits for example.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only great for people with limited tastes in music. I don't have music listening habits, because what I listen to is utterly unpredictable and changes from moment to moment (you should see my manually crafted playlists). That's just one of the reasons why I don't use music streaming services.

Re: Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I find the "you've listened to this on Tuesday night before." Quite annoying. Ever consider I don't want to listen to the same album every Tuesday night?

Play music also does a terrible job of introducing you to new music. Also, I HATE live versions of songs. Almost to a tee have poor production quality and are full of random chatter.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Not creepy at all

Really? 'Cuz I don't see it that way.

You think having a multi-national corporation having the level of detail about your life to know where you are, what you're doing, and what kind of music you might need for the moment ... all the while collecting, collating, and harvesting everything about your life, your friends, and your habits ... so they can monetize that information ... so they can show you ads ... and you think this is a good thing?

Seriously?

Oh, hell no. I'll play my music on my iPod or some other mechanism that isn't being tracked and analyzed ... without directly giving my location, current activity, mood, state of sobriety, and whom I'm with ... and no big fucking corporation (or little corporation) is going to fucking well monitor my life to the extent they can collect all that shit about me.

Don't use location services, don't use streaming services, don't use social media, will never use these digital assistants, and I sure as fuck don't let companies track my life.

Fuck that, I'm tired of this mobile and app bullshit, I simply see no value in this crap. I have a huge music collection, and I have no patience for advertisers, and even less for the surveillance state (even if it is privatized). I'm working to have less of a digital footprint, not more of one.

I can think of nothing I want less in my life than some goddamned computer program which is trying to intuit and track my mood and my life so some fucking asshole can sell ads.

I refuse to play that game.

Re:Not creepy at all

[AvitarX]

I've found it to give me a wide variety of options (probably not as broad as your lists, but across many genres of things that I like (a few types of "alternative", a few rock, a few hip hop, a few EDM, and some classical, I almost always like the lists, and often discover something new)).

It's I feel lucky button does a really good job of making a coherent list I want, unlike when I had Spotify and it was always very similar.

Maybe not for you, but it certainly does a decent job of broad taste.

I really like the ability to side load music too, that's helped me fill some gaps.

You'd probably be better served by Spotify if doing anything though, it has a more social aspect to the playlists and you'd likely be able to find something interesting there.

Re: Not creepy at all

[AvitarX]

I've not seen the live ones on play, but I definitely avoid them on YouTube.

I've had decent luck finding new things with I feel lucky and "similar to" lists, not so much for the radio.

Re: Not creepy at all

[olsmeister]

The AI would quickly pick up on the fact that you don't listen to the same music every Tuesday night and would play different albums for you each Tuesday. It would also quickly learn that you hate live music and would learn that you enjoy new music and so would play that for you.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

We think you'd very likely enjoy our archived collection of Art Bell broadcasts.

                                                                                              - Your Masters at Google

Re:Not creepy at all

[AvitarX]

I find it less creepy to use that information to help me than to advertise, but yes, in a broad sense Google is creepy.

Music suggestions, good
Traffic alerts and alternate routes home 20 minutes before I leave work, also good.

Re: Not creepy at all

[steve.rodrigue]

I'm listening to a lot of music genre and Google Play Music never let me down. I can switch from one style to another, I can like or dislike songs in any genre and the service always understand my taste. I never felt prisoner of the service.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I have looked at Spotify before, but they have a limited library. I also don't want social aspects when listening to music (or for most things online where they try to shoehorn a social aspect in) because I almost never like anything that others recommend to me. If I want to dance and interact with others, I'll go to a concert, a festival, an opera, a compo or a rave. My favourite is when I have nothing else to do, sitting down, putting on my headphones, closing my eyes and just listening.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually like the sound of Art Bell's voice. He's in my list of "cool voices" along with the likes of Brian Blessed, Carl Sagan, Cam Clarke, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, James Earl Jones (of course), Michael Wincott, Patrick Stewart, Peter Cullen, Roy Conrad, Terri Brosius and Vin Diesel.

I seriously doubt that Google would have enough taste to recommend Art Bell though.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm FatCashewsLoveMe! Have you seen my latest video review of Popeye Funko POP! #369, which is now available at Amazon for $16. Woo-hoo!

Re:Not creepy at all

[AvitarX]

How is it that you find new music then if you don't mind me asking?

I had a pretty dead patch of music discovery between college and streaming services, which is the main reason I switched from my library to a subscription (I had a subsonic server before getting spotify, then google music).

The gaps in the catalog of both can be frustrating, and baffling, but I've sideloaded a few hundred tracks that helped close them for me.

Re: Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The AI will also contact hot babes by phone asking them out for you, though on the other coast as it got location wrong.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I look for it myself. Many times I just happen to come across something that I like at random while looking for something else. Sometimes I find music I like online, sometimes it's from CDs I think I might like at the store (I buy a lot of really inexpensive, used CDs from my local Bookoff and Amoeba stores or, when I lived up north, at Rasputin).

I also discover some music by just hearing it on the radio (OTA or internet), in films, on TV, on YouTube, in games or when I'm out places, such as cafes, restaurants and clubs. I've even discovered music because it was playing over the PA while shopping at my local hardware store.

Basically I discover music anywhere that there is music. That includes stuff like chiptunes and scene related music in MOD/S3M/IT/XM format on sites like MOD Archive, pouet and Nectarine.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

TBH, that sounds pretty lame. I don't want something that feeds me stuff because it thinks I like a "style" of music. I don't go by styles or genres, I like music in and of itself of all styles and genres. It's individual pieces that jump out at me, not styles.

Recommending by style is precisely one of the limitations I'm talking about.

Re: Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Shills be shillin'!

Re: Not creepy at all

[thundercattt]

Least yours feeds you music you like. I'll have 90% metal songs, suddenly YouTube will throw on my feed the latest pop singers song and hilariously link it to "because you liked Slayer with the song about death and destruction" you'll like Taylor Swift

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

... because what I listen to is utterly unpredictable and changes from moment to moment ...

Sadly, I think you'll find that this bit of introspection is completely wrong.

Re:Not creepy at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, I think you'll find that there is no way you can possibly know that.

Here's the problem

[Peter P Peters]

The biggest flaw with the Internet is the Echo Chamber effect and Google and Facebooks algorithm's are just feeding that beast.
I want an Internet where I'm exposed to new and different ideas, not wrap me up in a comfort blanket of things I already know.
The echo chamber effect is the biggest threat to democracy and Google/Facebook are leading the charge.

Re:Here's the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how the AI will handle non-mainstream music videos like this one?
Trump sings Just the Two of Us

Re:Here's the problem

[Drethon]

That is one of my problems with Pandora. When I'm sitting coding I do like having something familiar for background noise, but the rest of the time I would really like a bit more variety than is provided.

Re:Here's the problem

[rudy_wayne]

The biggest flaw with the Internet is the Echo Chamber effect and Google and Facebooks algorithm's are just feeding that beast.

I want an Internet where I'm exposed to new and different ideas, not wrap me up in a comfort blanket of things I already know.

Exactly right.

Every so often I pick up something random and say "Hmmm . . . this looks weird and interesting, I'll give it a try".

A lot of it sucks and turns out to be crap. But almost all of my favorite books, movies and music were found that way.

Re:Here's the problem

[LynnwoodRooster]

Create many different Pandora streams. Then you can use the Pandora app to randomly mix those as well... That's an easy way to get a LOT of variety.

Re:Here's the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but they keep giving me this video

Re:Here's the problem

[Drethon]

Did not know about mixing streams, I will have to look into this.

Re:Here's the problem

[EETech1]

Just don't cross them!!!

Re:Here's the problem

[Vintermann]

So you think it's impossible for a machine learning algorithm to learn that novelty is something you like.

It's plain that most of you never tried Spotify's recommendation playlists. They're considerably better than Google Play's or last.fm's. You get exposed to way more original music than you would ever get through the usual channels (radio, friends).

It's probably similar with the "threat to democracy" filtering. You probably didn't get all that many new and different ideas from traditional media.

Re:Here's the problem

[CaffeinatedBacon]

Don't look into the streams with remaining eye!

Re:Here's the problem

[Peter P Peters]

So you think it's impossible for a machine learning algorithm to learn that novelty is something you like.

Not impossible, but not happening right now.

It's probably similar with the "threat to democracy" filtering. You probably didn't get all that many new and different ideas from traditional media.

Traditional media had standards that doesn't exist on the Internet. The threat is already here, More than half the population are getting their news form Social Media. The current leader of the free world is a product of the this Echo Chamber effect and the peace we enjoy is currently under threat because of it.

Re:Here's the problem

[umafuckit]

The biggest flaw with the Internet is the Echo Chamber effect and Google and Facebooks algorithm's are just feeding that beast. I want an Internet where I'm exposed to new and different ideas, not wrap me up in a comfort blanket of things I already know.

I agree, and best of all we already have that internet now. The trick is not to rely on algorithms to make suggestions, but to do research yourself and make your own choices. I read up a little about a given musical genre or period and then start listening to it. I use that listening experience to decide where I go next. Rinse & repeat. In this manner I'm not a passive consumer of whatever an algorithm thinks I like. Inevitably I end up exposed to a wide range of stuff and even end up listening to a good deal of material I'm not that into just to explore it. Sometimes I find things I really like in places I don't expect it. I would never have done that with an algorithm because it would have steered me away from content outside my comfort zone.

Re:Here's the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless I can I listen to specific rare and obscure music on Spotify, at any time, without advertising, with no added costs beyond the initial purchase and without an internet connection, I'm not interested.

Re:Here's the problem

[Peter P Peters]

I agree, and best of all we already have that internet now. The trick is not to rely on algorithms to make suggestions, but to do research yourself and make your own choices.

The problem is that it gets harder and harder everyday. I quit social media, run ad blockers, script blockers etc try to stick to reputable sources, but even they are getting polluted. How many sites now include news that has what someone on twitter thought? Youtube which I use for instructional and informative videos still throws tonnes of like suggestions at me they drown out the variety. I'm down to about 3 or 4 regular sites as the noise is just too strong.

Re:Here's the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The dystopian future of many a Sci-Fi book or movie is almost upon us.

Only, it wasn't brought to us by Ingsoc-style fascism. It was brought to us by Silicon Valley greed.

"AI"

[110010001000]

""When you arrive at the gym, for example, YouTube Music will offer up a playlist of hard-hitting pump-up jams (if that's your thing)," reports Audioholics. "Late at night, softer tunes will set a more relaxing mood."

No it won't. Companies always claim things like this but it never happens. They can't even deliver relevant advertising.

Re:"AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they can. You just signed up for a gym membership, so there's 5 other gyms in your area you may be interested in. Highly effective advertising!

However I'd prefer it if everything was tagged based instead of AI based. I'd much rather type in the "pumped-up" tag to get a list of such music rather than wait for them to data mine my habits and hope they get it correct. I don't always want softer tunes at night. Will I need to submit my lesson plans so they can figure out when I'm cramming for a test?

Re:"AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

I have:
Deep Focus Instrumentals as an evening section (six lists), a selection of work lists (I'm working), and stuff I've listened too.

At home I get more relaxing type suggestions, and on Friday nights I get pregame selections and party selections depending on the time.
It used to have a 3 level deep category tree (loosely mood -> genre -> list) which I actually preferred, so I guess in that regard the AI is worse than the not AI, but it's not bad, and I just recently resigned up because the Amazon one tacked onto Prime was bad.

Re:"AI"

[93 Escort Wagon]

To be fair, they do deliver your data to third parties efficiently.

Re:"AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

They already know about your tests. And they know whats in the bottom draw in the bathroom. Yeah that, hidden behind the mouthwash. Eww.

Re:"AI"

[110010001000]

No you don't. The service hasn't even launched yet. But nice astroturf.

Re:"AI"

[Austerity Empowers]

No it won't. Companies always claim things like this but it never happens. They can't even deliver relevant advertising.

There's no way they won't let marketing $ dominate the decision process to the point where the AI is basically useless. Every one of these services keeps trying to force-feed me popular crap that I keep disliking (where possible), and cannot be trained off of it. Even the AIs I wrote for undergrad projects 20 years ago worked better than that (or I'd have flunked). There's no way this is an accident.

Re:"AI"

[SoftwareArtist]

Based on how bad Google News is at recommending stories for me, they don't seem to have much idea what I like. You'd think that would be easy. I've been reading Google News for years so they ought to know what stories I click on. But they still keep recommending things I'm totally not interested in. I'd say their hype is way ahead of reality.

Re:"AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Google Play Music hits me up with playlist suggestions but rarely hits the mark. As if it can somehow tell my mood based on the day of the week and time of day. Sorry, amigo, that doesn't work. Anyway, I don't really care about playlist suggestions, unless they are part of a search result. New album suggestions are helpful, though.

I hope they nail this new music service, because if it sucks then they're going to lose a very long time Google Play Music family plan subscriber. Apple is one click away - that would probably be my next choice.

Re:"AI"

[houghi]

Advertising? It can not even deliver relevant content. With YouTube I started a test for one month where I am logged in. I am subscribed to around 200 channels and now when it suggests channels I will get 95% the channels I already look at and the other 5% are clearly sponsored or things that would get a lot of sponsors and in no way interesting for me.

So it will be: Hey you listen to rock band Whatever, so here is every number they ever played in every version. Oh and as a variety, here is the latest pop-person who the companies paid us to push.

This really is SUPER_CREEPY!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Collection and sale of people's personal data needs to be made illegal, with mandatory seven digit fines and triple digit jail terms for each instance. Stuff like this is just super-creepy! I have a large music collection that I have accumulated over many years of purchasing LPs, CDs, and music tracks. No music streaming service so far can even properly categorize music by genre! Much less tell what I might want to hear at any particular time! That a music streaming service could even tell where I am at any particular time is really really creepy!!

Stop trying, because you (Google) suck at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes I want to listen to heavy metal

Sometimes I want to listen to alternative

Sometimes I want to listen to EDM

Never do I want to listen to all above genres in the same playlist

But no you keep mixing them together.

Seriously, stop trying to predict what I want to listen to because you suck at it.

What are good alternatives?

[alexo]

I used to listen to music radio stations when cycling or rollerblading on my old phone but my current one does not have FM receiver.
What would be a good app and a good music streaming service that will allow me to pick a "channel" with a type of music I'm in a mood for and listen to it?
Elements to consider are subscription price (preferably none), ads (ditto), selection size, variety and ease of hands-free operation.

Thanks.

Re:What are good alternatives?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Well, I mean you're not going to get "NO" subscription fee AND no ads.

That said, even ad-supported streaming services appear to have less annoying and LOUD ads than FM radio these days. I stopped listening to FM about a decade ago. ClearChannel owns most stations, and they make damned sure that every channel is running the same ads at the same time so that you can't switch away (Why the fuck do I need to hear a car ad when I'm in my car?)

I load up my own music on the phone for the most part, but as I have trained Pandora on my preferences, that has become a good option.

Re:What are good alternatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pandora is a common choice.

iHeartRadio provides streams of many radio stations under the iHeartRadio banner.

Spotify's model is based more around picking what you want to play freely out of their catalog, but they have many curated playlists.

Google Play has a model similar to Spotify and has curated playlists, but they also have some functionality to recommend music.

All of them have some form of ad-supported model.

Re:What are good alternatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you liked the radio, get TuneIn and just stream the radio.

Re:What are good alternatives?

[CrashNBrn]

Google Play Music, now known as YouTube Music :

Pick an Album, Song or Artist, and choose "Play Radio",
A perpetual queue will be generated based on that selection.
The queue can be saved as a playlist. Playlists can be downloaded to your device.

Re:What are good alternatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I mean you're not going to get "NO" subscription fee AND no ads.

Sure you can. Just listen to internet radio streams. Most of those don't require subscriptions or have ads.

Given that 'AI' is just software

[Anonymous Coward]

and not 'artificial intelligence', and not that different from Apple's Genius feature (now over a decade old, BTW) I expect my brain matter to remain in tact. Google are a joke. Have been from the day they got lucky via timing with their search engine. The day a good idea, an original thought, or a functional product leaves their campus is the day the lava people will ascend from the center of the earth and devour us. They are tied with Facebook for the title of 'World's Wealthiest Punchline' - it takes some serious ineptitude to make Microsoft look good by comparison, which Google does, every day.

Matching my AI

[Anonymous Coward]

Matches my AI which searches and pretends to listen to different songs. Should be interesting...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It's not AI

[DogDude]

It's not AI. It a fucking database. [type of person] with [interests] and [characteristics] tend to like music by [musician].

Re:It's not AI

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think AI is? Its the analysis and choices around data making it relevant. That's all AI is. Now that you know the secret, feel empowered to do better than Google Music has been doing, which is quite good - not just genre but tempo/rhythm and even key and chord patterns tailored to specific events/times/places based on what I listen to in those places at those times, combined with data from other people doing that. Maybe not life changing super intelligence but not so bad.

Re:It's not AI

[Anonymous Coward]

A true AI would have things like life, intelligence, independent thought, creativity, emotion, empathy, insight, instinct and intuition.

Let me know when they build Mr. Data. Until then, I'm not interested in their dinky little chatbots which amount to a series of if then statements attached to a bigger database.

Jerk off music?

[DogDude]

Being as you're obviously a well-tended Google product, can you tell us if it correlates music to what kind of porn you're jerking off to, as well? I'm completely serious.

Re:Jerk off music?

[AvitarX]

No, that's what Firefox private browsing is for, duh.

Won't work

[Askmum]

If it is anything like their algorithm on youtube it is not going to work. "Oh, you've wachted one cute cat movie? Let's spam you with cute cat movies because that's the only thing you're interested in".
Nope.

Re:Won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

And Casey Neistat and BuzzFeed, because everybody loves them right? YouTube pushes what it wants to push, not what you want to see/hear.

Better options, but they are unavaliable

[Spinalcold]

I would be for this if there weren't better options that are not available to me because of the shitty music industry. I want to use Pandora because it already does tailor made playlists that use much better algorithms and show me new music. But the music industry has no interest in letting customers find lesser known bands and no interest in letting people listen to what they want to. Instead the music industry is entirely invested in a few brands they want to sell and they will MAKE you like them. This will be the same few hundred tracks looped to what they want to sell you, and not giving you what you would be interested in.

Just what I hate about Spotify.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What separates YouTube's music streaming service from the competition is its catalog of remixes, live versions, and covers of official versions of songs." - If they could guarantee not to play any of these when I ask my assistant to play something, then I'd be interested. Spotify doesn't have an option to avoid this trash.

Re:Just what I hate about Spotify.

[guyniraxn]

Came here to say this. I wish I could filter out live/covers/remixes when searching for a song. That's not signal, that's noise. They have plenty of that nonsense on Spotify already and it's not exactly what I'd call a feature.

And I hope YouTube Music's AI is better than regular YouTube, I'm tired of playing one song by a band and then getting recommended other songs by the same band in my personal station, no matter how many times I skip over them when they pop up and they don't even include the one I manually searched for and played through.

I doubt I'll get predictions matching my habits.

[Anonymous Coward]

"At this time of day in this location, you usually listen to nothing." Bloody likely.

The creepy part..

[mrwireless]

Is not so much that they create profiles about you, it's that a larger market of databrokers is getting ahold of that data too. They when start using that data as a proxy for more salient things their clients would like to know about you.

For example, in the short term the music you select says a lot about your mood. In the long term this helps to update a score about your mental stability and health. And those scores, along with others, then influences your employability score.

Spotify has been sharing data on your mood since 2016:
https://betanews.com/2016/07/2...

In the coming years the scandals will increasingly involve databrokers. The general populace has no idea what is going on in that market.

Re:The creepy part..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it's important that we fight for our rights. If you know a company that excludes people from hiring based on their musical tastes, boycott them and don't work for them.

No thanks to all such services.

[Anonymous Coward]

No streaming service will ever appeal to me for one simple reason. Somebody else gets to decide what tunes are available and has total control of the catalogue. Most importantly they can arbitarily remove anyhing that doesn't fit in with thier prejudices or causes some vocal minority offence. So all of a sudden you may find all the things you like have dissapeared. Permanently. AIrbrushed out of history.

This actually holds true for any form of media streaming service not just music. So no thanks to all of them. I'll keep my local copies and will find new stuff myself.

Not to mention the fact that all these services will weventually come with the cancerous taint of advertising, product placement etc. etc. Even if they start out with an ad free subscription service some douchbag MBA will come along and decided that adding advertising is a great way to gouge even more money out of the service.

It's also why I don't hold anything at all in "the cloud". Someone else owns now owns your data.

So no thanks.

ai why

[Anonymous Coward]

name some instances of google ai that you love. i canâ(TM)t. their search is great but thats it. bing is better especially for media

AI is serving Google

[DrYak]

The purpose of the AI is *not* to serve you.
The purpose of the AI is to serve *Google's* interest, and Google earn money by selling your eyeballs to advertisers (with the exception of a couple of paid service like the non-free Youtube Music and Youtube Premium), which means the AI optimizes for one single thing :
- make you stay as much as possible on youtube (thus prolonging your exposure to lucrative ads).

And as has been already demonstrated with old media (studied with TV), what works best on most people is :
- showing increasingly more extreme content
- trying to appeal emotion
- even better if that emotion is fear (increases even more ads success).

By having the AI automatically trying to learn "Which video should I auto-play next, so that the user stays longer", the old media research tells us that the AI will eventually end up favoring those videos, which happens to be more biased fear-mongering and will considers less other video which happen to be the "different ideas" you're longing for.
Wraping viewer in a comfort blanket will unknowingly be what happens, because research has shown that this is what works best for what the algorithm has been written to optimise for (increasing viewer retension and increasing revenue stream).

The echo chamber effect is an unintended consequence of how human psyche works and what corporations like Google and FB are optimizing for.

For the first time, paid service (like todays' Youtube Music / Youtube Premium) Google is having a platform where they don't need to actually maintain viewer retention, only need to optimize for people keeping their subscription.
(e.g.: if Google releases one cool movie per month as exclusive on youtube, and users end up thinking that this monthly so cool that it is totally worth paying the fee, we'll end up a situation where the platform doesn't need to optimize for minutes spent, only for quality making people keep their subscription.
That still doesn't fix people's biased interests, but reduces the "whatever crap makes them stay" current bubble making click bait)

Re:AI is serving Google

[Albanach]

The purpose of the AI is to serve *Google's* interest, and Google earn money by selling your eyeballs to advertisers (with the exception of a couple of paid service like the non-free Youtube Music and Youtube Premium), which means the AI optimizes for one single thing :
- make you stay as much as possible on youtube (thus prolonging your exposure to lucrative ads).

You do realize that the purpose of the subscription is to get ad free access?

Optimisation

[DrYak]

So you think it's impossible for a machine learning algorithm to learn that novelty is something you like.

Impossible ? No it isn't.

Will it do it ? Actually not, it wont.
The machine learning written by Google tend to optimize mostly for "whatever makes the viewer stay longer so we can throw more ads at them" (well, except for the paid version of the service)
And due to how human psyche works, the things which are most likely to end up on the learned list of "best things to show after this video" are going to be mostly more extreme/more stupid/more click baity crap.

Machine learning patterns

[DrYak]

[type of person] with [interests] and [characteristics] tend to like music by [musician].

Actually not how it has been done for quite some time.

Much more like "people who have played video A, B and C, are more likely to stay playing video D" and some similar kind of chain modelling. So more machine learning than database.

(And then, due to how human psyche works, D is most likely to be "more crap/worse click bait".
You begin listening to some random music on the free ads-sponsored Youtube Music and somehow a few hours in you end-up listening to audiobooks of conspiracy theories while your eyes have been burned by 120k "toaster pop-up ads")

Youtube Services

[cshark]

I'm a technical, educated user. In general, I know how things work.

But I'm more than a little confused about the services Youtube is offering in particular.
You've got Youtube Red, Youtube TV, Youtube Premium, and now... youtube music?

Am I crazy?

Haven't we seen this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this just Yahoo Shoutcast all over again?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

meh - AI failings

[ripvlan]

I like to be introduced to new music, or genres of music. I used to subscribe to Pandora but canceled a few years ago. I'd read the local "bands playing this weekend" and look them up on Pandora.

What I liked was typing in a musicians name and hearing one track from them - and then "like" tracks from other bands so I get the basic vibe. Then I could decide "I like that" and buy tickets.

But the big failing --- if I wanted to know what "smooth jazz" was, there wasn't a way to type in a (foreign to me) genre and have the system be a smart DJ. Instead when creating a "station" the "DNA" system would just play similar tempo music. It would wander off from quiet rock and I'd begin to hear Frank Sinatra an hour later (I swear you could start with AC/DC and always get to Frank!). These AI systems don't understand music - rather are all trained on tempo or volume or other characteristics of the Sound file. Some of this could be due to the small library that Pandora has. I often heard repeats on the Surfing station within an hour or so (I think I own more content in this one genre than they did !)

There are still a few local DJ's who "go a track deeper" and play an hour of music, providing a tour. Man - I want some 80's disco. Not popular Bee Gees track followed by a bunch of similar hip hop covers !

When AI becomes this smart - then I'll be impressed. Until then I'll stream whatever is cheap from my Amazon prime or personal collection - and listen to the radio for when I want non-artificial intelligence.

YouTube predicts the past

[Anonymous Coward]

If the current YouTube video algorithm is any indication, nearly all suggestions of what you might like are videos you have already watched. Not surprisingly, those are the best match to your history. Duh.

Both free and subscription

[DrYak]

Google earn money by selling your eyeballs to advertisers (with the exception of a couple of paid service like the non-free Youtube Music and Youtube Premium)

You do realize that the purpose of the subscription is to get ad free access?

You realize that even TFS mentioned in the last paragraph that the services are available both as a free ads-ridden services (the free Youtube Music, and of course classic Youtube) and as subscription services with a monthly fee (Youtube Music and Youtube Premium, resp) ?

(You realize also that I explicitly mentioned paying service in the part that you blockquoted ?)

Also, as I mentioned at the end of my post, the specific case of user who pay for a subscription might be the first occasion where the algorithms are unleashed with a different win condition (for the first time : "keep eyeballs glued to the screen" might not be the main target=

Re:Both free and subscription

[Albanach]

Okay, but I missed out your first line:

The purpose of the AI is *not* to serve you.

AI has a great many purposes. I'd argue that many of those Google implement it for are indeed to serve the customer. When I look at my phone in the morning, it telling me my commute to work is backed up and here's an alternate route isn't serving Google or showing me more ads. It's making my phone more useful which might make me stick with Android when I next upgrade.

Recognizing that I'm at work and might want to listen to instrumental music offers a better service.

Arguing that AI by Google is currently only used for the purpose of increasing ad views is to distract from the many ways it's used that don't increase ad views but simply make their services better and more useful than those of the competition.